Two Ways to Boost Your American Airlines Miles Balance – And an Easy Way to Keep AAdvantage Miles Alive

American Airlines just announced a partnership with Shell Fuel Rewards. The new partnership will allow you to earn AAdvantage miles each time you fill up at a Shell station.

That’s one way you can boost your AAdvantage miles balance…especially if you’re new to the Shell Fuel Rewards program.

Another is the SimplyMiles program which allows the earning of bonus AAdvantage miles on specific purchases.

If you value American Airlines miles, these two programs are an easy way to add to your AAdvantage balance. Or, if accruing a large balance is not your goal, but you want to keep what AAdvantage miles you have from expiring (18 months with no activity) these are an easy way to make that happen.

Here’s an overview of each program.

American Airlines and Shell Fuel Rewards

We’ve written about the Shell Fuel Rewards program in the past, but with regard to saving each time you fill up at a Shell gas station.

This new partnership and promotion will allow members to earn AAdvantage miles each time gas is purchased at a Shell station.

Specifically, members will earn 2 AAdvantage miles for every gallon of fuel purchased.

To take advantage, you must have a Fuel Rewards account and link that account to your American Airlines AAdvantage account.

You can do so at the account sign-up link below. Just have your AAdvantage number handy as it will be needed to join.

Shell Fuel Rewards/AAdvantage Program Sign-Up Link

You can add credit cards to your Fuel Rewards account so that when those cards are used to pay at Shell stations, you’ll automatically earn the points.

Or, you can sign in at the pump each time, using your Alt ID (set at sign-up, and is usually your phone number) or have a physical card mailed to you to scan at the pump/station.

The linked credit card(s) is probably the easiest and has worked well for me when accessing my account and per gallon discount the past few years.

New members to the Fuel Rewards program can earn 100 AAdvantage bonus miles after the first fill-up of at least 5 gallons. The 100 AAdvantage bonus miles promo ends December 31, 2022, so there’s plenty of time to earn those bonus miles if they’re of interest.

I won’t get into the value of earning AAdvantage miles over a per gallon discount…that’s up to your to decide for your specific situation…but the new Shell/AA partnership is one more option for adding miles to your AAdvantage account.

AAdvantage SimplyMiles

The AAdvantage SimplyMiles program is not new but is getting a lot of interest due to its current bonus offering now through December 27, 2021.

Due to an overwhelming customer response, the 5x promotion has been ended early. The regular, unbonused SimplyMiles program, however, continues.

Purchases using the SimplyMiles program will earn 5 times the reward amount associated with a particular SimplyMiles offer with this current bonus promotion.

For example, there’s currently a Best Buy offer that provides 1,500 miles on a purchase of $200 or more. According to the current bonus promotion, you’d earn 5 times that amount, or 7,500 miles when you met the offer’s requirements prior to the December 27th end date for the bonus promo.

And there may be even more lucrative offers added to your SimplyMiles account a few days after signing up, so keep checking, especially during the 5x promo period.

Now a quick overview of how SimplyMiles works.

First and foremost, you can only use valid Mastercards with the SimplyMiles program.

When SimplyMiles was started, you needed an American Airlines Mastercard to join, but that’s no longer the case, any Mastercard will do. And, you can add up to three different Mastercards to your SimplyMiles account.

If you don’t have a Mastercard, unfortunately, you won’t be able to use SimplyMiles.

Once your account is set up and a Mastercard – or three – is linked to the account, you can start using SimplyMiles.

If you’re familiar with Chase Offers or Amex Offers, SimplyMiles works similarly.

• Check your SimplyMiles account for offers that are of interest
• Add those offers to your card
• Use the linked Mastercard to make the purchase
• Earn the bonus points associated with the offer

Miles are supposed to post to your SimplyMiles account within 5 business days. As with any Offers program, the time for posting of earned points/cash back can definitely vary, though.

And, as with Chase or Amex Offers, SimplyMiles offers are card-linked, meaning you likely can shop through a cash back/miles/points shopping portal to earn/save even more.

You can use Cashback Monitor to check for current cash back/points offerings for individual retailers when you’re ready to redeem a SimplyMiles offer. Once you’ve clicked through a particular shopping portal’s retailer link, just use the SimplyMiles linked Mastercard to pay and you’ll earn the SimplyMiles AAdvantage miles, too.

As I always caution with any Offers program, be sure to read the fine print associated with a particular offer to ensure you’re meeting all the requirements.

End dates, exclusions and minimum spend amounts (before taxes and shipping) are potential deal-killers, so watch carefully.

Wrap Up

If you’re looking for a way to add to your American Airlines AAdvantage miles balance, the new AA/Fuel Rewards partnership and SimplyMiles programs just might be for you.

New members to the Fuel Rewards program can earn 100 AAdvantage miles after the first fill-up and 2 AA miles per gallon thereafter.

And, if you have a Mastercard, taking advantage of the SimplyMiles program can be an easy way to earn bonus AAdvantage miles just by shopping.

At the very least, earning one AAdvantage mile from either program will reset your AAdvantage expiration clock for another 18 months.

What do you think? Are you going to bother with either of these AAdvantage earning programs?